The Ward 6 Redistricting Task Force meets Thursday, July 21st, 6:30pm at Miner Elementary School (601 15th Street, NE). This is the task force’s third meeting, billed as a 6A community listening meeting. The task force’s first meeting was a briefing with the Board of Elections and Ethics and Office of Planning and its second was the 6C community listening meeting.
Charged with gathering input from residents in the different areas of the newly drawn Ward 6, the task force will hold a series of eight public meetings through early August. On August 18th they will send a first draft of new ANC and SMD boundaries to the ANCs. Representatives of the task force will then attend the affected ANC monthly meetings in September to present the draft and gather input. Two additional public meetings will follow in September, at which time a final map will be voted on and transmitted to Councilmember Wells. Final task force recommendations will be presented by Wells to the Council on September 30th.
The task force recently launched a blog, which includes a full meeting schedule, links to relevant documents, activity updates and opportunities to vote on questions the task force is attempting to address. The task force is chaired by Joe Fengler, former chair of ANC 6A, and includes other former commissioners such as Cody Rice, Antonette Russell, Ken Jarboe and Raphael Marshall; along with high profile community members like Skip Coburn, Tyler Merkeley, former Sharon Ambrose chief of staff Marge Francese and Donna Scheeder, Chair of the Eastern Market Community Advisory Committee. Gene Fisher also serves on the task force as a representative of Councilmember Orange. Evelyn Branic recently stepped down from the task force because of scheduling conflicts.